I attended a meeting last week that started out with the suggestion that if anyone had any new ideas on the upcoming event under discussion, to please share them with the group. I was quite happily surprised by the number of new ideas that were voiced by the attendees. I’ve been in many a meeting where no one made any suggestions and not much was accomplished. Although this meeting had a pre-set agenda, I think that starting the meeting with a request for new ideas, let everyone know that this meeting was to be an ‘exchange of ideas meeting’, as opposed to a ‘listen to what we are saying’ meeting.
Some of the new ideas that were mentioned were unique and ‘fresh’. Once the ideas started coming, other individuals helped build on some of them. Not all ideas were ultimately usable, but even some of the unusable ideas were a jumping off point to go in another direction that could be done.
Try starting off your next meeting soliciting everyone’s ideas and suggestions. You might be happily surprised with the results.
The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Open House 2014 – 40th Anniversary Celebration
This will be my final reminder to everyone that New England Machinery will be hosting an Open House the week of Feb. 24 – 28, 2014 from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. each day. In honor of our 40th Anniversary celebration, this year’s Open House will include a ‘Guess the number of bottles in the hopper contest’ with an iPad Air as the winning prize. Whoever guesses closest to without going over the number of bottles in the hopper will win the iPad.
The Open House will include a tour of our production facilities to show our customers how we build our machines ‘from scratch’ right here in Bradenton, Florida. Visitors will see our machine shop, welding, fabrication, tuning and testing, shipping, parts and more. If you can make it that week, please give us a call at (941) 755-5550 to let us know you are coming. We would love to see our customers and show off our facility.
The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.
The Open House will include a tour of our production facilities to show our customers how we build our machines ‘from scratch’ right here in Bradenton, Florida. Visitors will see our machine shop, welding, fabrication, tuning and testing, shipping, parts and more. If you can make it that week, please give us a call at (941) 755-5550 to let us know you are coming. We would love to see our customers and show off our facility.
The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.
Monday, February 10, 2014
2014 Steps To Improve and Grow
If you want to put your company on a path for growth and success, make sure you start by laying the right groundwork. A strong foundation is critical in sustaining growth. Some of the framework required would be making sure your company has written standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all tasks and in all departments throughout the company. All companies experience turnover from time to time and having written SOPs for all tasks ensures that the experience required to perform the duties of a position don’t ‘walk out the door’ with the employee who left, as well as allows for easier training for the replacement.
Another piece of the framework would be to implement a 5S program. The 5S program will eliminate waste, increase productivity, and make the overall work environment more pleasant for everyone. Although time-consuming and difficult to initially implement, the long-term rewards of 5S far surpass the ‘pain’ of implementation.
What other programs has your company used to pave the way for sustainable growth?
The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.
Another piece of the framework would be to implement a 5S program. The 5S program will eliminate waste, increase productivity, and make the overall work environment more pleasant for everyone. Although time-consuming and difficult to initially implement, the long-term rewards of 5S far surpass the ‘pain’ of implementation.
What other programs has your company used to pave the way for sustainable growth?
The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.
Monday, February 3, 2014
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
When purchasing new machinery for your packaging production line you need to know what questions to ask. The problem is that often times we don’t know what to ask. It is simply a matter of ‘we don’t know, what we don’t know.’ Unfortunately, what you don’t know can hurt you.
The best way to avoid costly mistakes is to find a vendor who is knowledgeable about production lines and who works for a company with a strong engineering department that can assist you. Ask them to ‘walk you through’ exactly how their machinery will work on your line and how the integration of the different machines works. Ask questions about what happens when one machine on the line goes down. How does that affect the other machines? You might be purchasing a machine that works great at the speed it was built to run at, but if you need to slow it down due to a problem with another machine, it doesn’t run well or at all at a lower speed.
Take your time in making a purchasing decision if you don’t feel you have all the answers. Ask questions of all your vendors and make sure the answers they give you make sense to you and they can show you how and why their answers are correct. You can also ask the vendor for a reference you can call and ask them what they did in a similar situation. It is always helpful to speak with someone who has done it before and can tell you what to look out for.
The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.
The best way to avoid costly mistakes is to find a vendor who is knowledgeable about production lines and who works for a company with a strong engineering department that can assist you. Ask them to ‘walk you through’ exactly how their machinery will work on your line and how the integration of the different machines works. Ask questions about what happens when one machine on the line goes down. How does that affect the other machines? You might be purchasing a machine that works great at the speed it was built to run at, but if you need to slow it down due to a problem with another machine, it doesn’t run well or at all at a lower speed.
Take your time in making a purchasing decision if you don’t feel you have all the answers. Ask questions of all your vendors and make sure the answers they give you make sense to you and they can show you how and why their answers are correct. You can also ask the vendor for a reference you can call and ask them what they did in a similar situation. It is always helpful to speak with someone who has done it before and can tell you what to look out for.
The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
